Here are the biggest takeaways from the past week in NCAA Basketball, including a look at the major flaws that may hinder North Carolina and Virginia.
The NCAA Basketball season is hitting its first really fun stretch with the start of non-conference tournaments this past week, and that created – and will continue to create – a number of high-profile matchups that will have impacts seen in the weekly rankings and in NCAA Tournament seeding.
Duke was the biggest winner of the week as they won the 2K Empire Classic by beating Cal and Georgetown, ensuring they’ll maintain their No. 1 ranking for a second week. Star freshman big man Vernon Carey Jr. emerged as this team’s go-to offensive player during that two-game stretch as the Blue Devils seemed to find their footing on that end of the floor.
The Hoyas also looked much improved during their two games at Madison Square Garden, showing improved defense that pushed the Blue Devils to the brink in their matchup. Florida finally showed an offensive pulse in a blowout win over Miami while teams like Villanova and Xavier validated their rankings with important victories of their own.
This coming week brings about a plethora of non-conference tournaments – perhaps too many. The Battle 4 Atlantis and Maui Invitational are always much-watch TV, yet there a bunch of other tournaments will feature quality games only to be overshadowed by other, better games. The logjam of games and tournaments during the coming week, dubbed Feast Week, is a problem I’d love to see fixed, and I dove into the reasons why last year at this time.
We’ll look at the great games to come at the end of this Rauf Report, but what did we learn from this week’s action? Here are the biggest takeaways: